It is well known to provide a knife of the type having a handle and a flat blade removably coupled to and projecting outwardly from the handle at one end thereof. Such a knife is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 615,922, filed May 31, 1984, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,646,440. A knife described in this disclosure includes a hollow handle open at one end thereof and provided with a spring steel blade carrier, slidably received within the handle. A blade is detachably secured to one end of the blade carrier and means is provided on the handle and coupled with the blade carrier for retracting the blade carrier into the handle so that the blade is moved partially into the handle and held firmly thereby so that the knife is then ready for immediate use. When the blade is so positioned, the blade carrier has a number of spaced surface portions thereon which engage the inner surface of the handle and the blade shank, thereby biasing the blade against the inner surface of the handle to firmly secure the blade in its operative position to the handle. The knife can then be used for a wide variety of different cutting and trimming tasks yet the blade can be quickly removed from the handle by sliding the blade carrier a short distance out of the handle itself and separating the blade from the handle.
While a knife of the aforesaid disclosure is extremely useful in many situations, it is possible that there might be objection to the fact that the blade is located off-center relative to the centerline of the handle when the blade is in its operative position on to the handle. This off-center mounting of the blade occurs because the blade carrier biases the shank of the blade against the inner surface of the handle. The present invention provides a knife of the type described which is constructed to eliminate such off-center mounting of the blade without sacrificing the advantageous features of the knife of the foregoing disclosure. objection.